Chapter 7 King Xavier/Dark POV
I watched Elena Heart retreat into the shadows of the balcony, her gown still disheveled, her movements unsteady. The tremor in her thighs was visible even from where I stood.
Leo, my personal butler and most trusted man, remained by the pillar, he looked at the woman, then to me as my hand lingering on the stone where her back had pressed, my blue eyes tracking her until she vanished through the archway.
Leo stepped from his concealment, his boots silent on the marble. "She's remarkable, Your Majesty," he said.
I turned, unsurprised. It was our perfect plan, Leo would wear my suit and my crown as we misled the young naive spy.
I smirked, "She's broken. Temporarily."
“Are you sure about our plan, Your Majesty?”
"Yes and broken implies she cannot be repaired." I moved to the pillar, ran my fingers along the damp stone where her sweat had collected. "I prefer... opened."
Leo’s jaw tightened beneath his mask. “But if, she'll return to her handlers. Report failure, or partial success. They'll send another."
"They'll send no one." I turned to face him, catching the moonlight on my own now unmasked features.
Two days ago, when the report crossed my desk, Heart bloodline, female, trained in Velasian courts, dispatched to infiltrate as consort, I'd made my decision.
Leo now wore my crown somewhere below, playing the role of distant, bored monarch. The real game happened here, in the shadows I preferred. "I will have her, Leo. Not as prisoner.
Not as asset. As willing participant in her own seduction."
"She came to kill you, sire."
"She came to try." I laughed, and the sound carried no warmth. "Do you know how long it's been since someone dared? Since anyone looked at Xavier the Tyrant and thought, 'Yes, I will be the one to end him'?" I spread my hands, gesturing at the empty balcony, the distant music, the entire theater of my making.
"They fear me. They whisper. They plot in corners and send others to do their work. But this girl, this pretty, delicate thing, she came herself. She looked at my throne and thought, 'I will take it.'"
Leo was silent.
"I respect that," I continued. "Respect demands reciprocity. She offered me a game. I will offer her one in return."
"She's compromised now. She'll suspect manipulation."
"She'll suspect everything. That's what makes it interesting." I moved to the balcony's edge, looking down at the masquerade below. “Go, play your part, act like me and let them play their part.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Leo left immediately.
Then, my most loyal kingsguard, James, appeared behind me as Leo moved through the crowd in my royal purple, the crown catching candlelight. No one questioned his presence.
My butler had served me for fifteen years; he knew my posture, my silences, my disdain.
"She believes she seduces the kingsguard to get through the king. Let her continue believing. Let her work so hard to earn the attention of that cold figure on the throne, while the real target stands beside her in plain sight."
James frowned, "You intend to approach her as a guest."
"I intend to become her confidant." I turned back to James, reading the tension in his shoulders. "You have your role. Watch her and her friends.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“She won't stop seeing me, because she'll think I'm Dark, the Kingsguard, her way to the King, her way to the throne and I bet she'll also dream of my hands tonight, my voice, my mask. But dreams fade. I will be the waking reality."
"And if she prefers the dream?"
I smiled, and watched Jame's composure crack further.
"Then I will have the satisfaction of knowing I was her first and also her last. I will be the one she chooses, freely and completely, when she understands that the man she came to destroy and the man she learned to want are the same."
I found her in the garden, twenty minutes later.
She'd composed herself remarkably, gown smoothed, hair pinned back into place, the flush on her throat hidden by strategic shadow. She stood by the reflecting pool, staring at her own masked reflection as if interrogating it for weaknesses.
I approached from behind, my footsteps deliberately audible. She turned, and I saw her hand move toward her thigh, where a blade would rest, before she caught herself.
"Forgive me," I said, keeping my voice low, unthreatening. Not the command tone of a king, but the careful neutrality of a courtier navigating dangerous waters. "I couldn't help but notice you seemed... distressed. On the balcony earlier."
Her eyes narrowed. Blue-green, intelligent, calculating even now. "The king was watching."
"He was walking. The balcony is public space." I stopped three paces away, close enough to converse, far enough to seem respectful. "Though I confess, I saw him avert his eyes once he understood the nature of the encounter. Some privacies should remain private, even in a masquerade."
She studied me with the thoroughness of her training. My clothes, fine but not royal, dark velvet without the purple or gold that marked the king's circle. My face, now masked again, unremarkable, the features I'd inherited from my mother rather than the stark presence I'd cultivated for the throne. I was handsome enough to pass without comment, forgettable enough to seem safe.
"He saw nothing," she said. Not a question.
"But I saw a woman who handled herself with more composure than most would manage." I let admiration enter my voice, carefully measured. "Whoever he was, King or not, that masked man, he seemed determined to unravel you. You didn't let him."
The lie was delicate, and I watched her decide whether to accept it. Her shoulders dropped almost imperceptibly. "He was... persistent."
“Hmmm.”
"Men like that usually are." I moved to the pool's edge, giving her space to breathe, to choose whether to join me. "The King was clever and also not stupid, I assume. He has a reputation."
"You know who I am?"
"I know you're new to court. That you carry yourself like someone who's been trained for rooms like this, rather than born to them." I met her eyes in the water's reflection. "I recognize the type. I was one, once. Climbing from nothing, learning the steps, hoping no one notices how hard you're counting the beats."
She stepped closer. The vulnerability was calculated, I recognized it because I'd taught it to a dozen agents myself, but the calculation didn't negate its effectiveness. "And what did you climb to?"
"Comfortable obscurity." I turned to face her directly, letting her see the honesty I was offering. "I advise. I observe. I survive. In Xavier's court, that's its own victory. I am his kingsguard the nobody knew, i was his shadow for a reason."